


Battle of the Lake

by mime_666



Category: Legend of the Five Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mime_666/pseuds/mime_666
Summary: Samurai, of various clans, defend Rokugan from Shadowlands' forces - with the gift of each of their clans.
Kudos: 1





	Battle of the Lake

**Author's Note:**

> This tale is set in the early days of L5R before the Scorpion Clan coup and the return of Fu Leng

\- There had been no time to re-light torches since the Shadowlands army’s attack and there were precious few moments until the battle was rejoined. The magistrates had come upon the Shadowlands army as they had attacked an Imperial convoy. Fu Leng’s minions had fled off mistaking the magistrates for an army of reinforcements rather than the 5 samurai they actually numbered.  
They gathered in darkness, Lion, Crane, Crab and Scorpion. The Dragon, as he so often did, stood apart from them.   
The Lion spoke first, “How many of your escort survived?”  
Isawa Yushiro, formerly an apprentice to the convoy, now its leader, steeled himself with a ragged breath.   
“Three score bushi and their gunsos still live. Our shugenja were all struck down by maho during the initial attack.”  
“Not all,” corrected Bayushi Okita from the darkness, with typical Scorpion precision.  
“Enough of your lies, assassin,” spat the Crab in dismissal. His attention was directed across the lake to where the Shadowlands force lay. Even his Hida determination could not pierce the gloom to grant him sight of his enemy.  
He returned his gaze to the group, “What of the foe, how do they number?”  
Unlike the Crab, Yushiro had more than his senses to rely upon. He closed his eyes as he replied.  
“They are around three times our number, a mixed group of goblins, oni and a maho-tsukai.” Yohiro’s reply was shaky, more from the Scorpion’s barbs than from his physical wounds. He appealed in his own defence, “My masters died protecting the scrolls, they left me behind to ensure their safety.”  
“No one doubts your courage, son,” said Daidoji Koto softly, like all his clan shifting from warrior to diplomat as needed. “Pay no heed to the Scorpion, it is just her way.”  
“Why did you not just destroy the scrolls? Break the chest, set it afire?” interrupted the Crab, impatience speeding on each syllable.  
The Phoenix met Toju’s gaze, “The scrolls are too valuable to be lost, although they are safe from capture. Protective wards return the force of any attack made upon the scroll chest twofold. Attempt to cut it and the wound would be yours, if you fired it, the chest would repay the compliment.”  
“Typical Phoenix,” growled the Crab, “weighing magic against men.”  
“That is enough,” said the Lion. His voice, ringing out with practised authority, brought even the Crab to a halt.  
A thousand years of Akodo leadership weighed behind his next statement, “The maho-tsukai will not have the scrolls.”  
“Yoshiro, I saw a gunso bearing the wasp mon amongst your men,” it was not truly a question but the Lion allowed the Phoenix a nod before continuing. “Equip his troops with fire-arrows. Then have your ashigari construct a raft and load the scroll chest upon it. You, your yojimbo and your strongest hoteis will row out to the centre of the lake.”  
“So, this is the Akodo strategy, is it?” mocked the Crab, “the boy skulks in safety whilst we meet the spawn of the Nameless One in honourable battle.”  
“No, you misunderstand,” replied the Lion, the stain upon his clan’s expertise put aside for the moment, “the archers cannot support us, the woods provide too much cover. When Yoshiro reaches the lake’s deepest point they will fire upon the raft and sink it. Left below the lake the Nameless One shall not have it. I will send a fastlegs scout to Shiro castle and have them retrieve the chest and our bodies both. Of course, victory is ours only if the archers are protected until they complete their duty.”  
Akodo Hisashi let the words hang between them for a moment.   
“That, Hida Toju, will be our task. We shall make our stand at the bottom of the valley where the battle is fiercest.”  
Toju allowed himself only a small snort of approval. Already his eyes were eagerly devouring the details of the land between woods and hill, choosing the ground on which to die.  
“But, I am a Scorpion,” came the steeled tones of Okita, “we do not throw our lives away for empty heroics.”   
She weathered the contempt of the group, bearing the burden of their distrust as all Scorpions did.   
“We aim for the heart. The maho-tsukai will not survive the battle, on that you have my promise,” she said with a perfect courtier’s bow.  
“And mine,” followed the Crane smoothly slipping into the Scorpion’s sight, “that I shall not leave your side, Okita-Ko. There is still the murder of my yoriki to settle when the Shadowlands force is routed.”  
Thus came agreement

Only the Dragon kept silent.

Hisashi Akodo surveyed the men at his disposal, a few ashigari and a single gunso. First he instructed them of their task as samurai. He had deployed them, in deference to the terrain, in an extended line. The centre of the formation would fall back during the attack, appearing to falter. When the Shadowlands creatures pressed the attack on this supposed weak point the flanks of the line would curl around, encircling them. The Shadowland’s numbers would count for nothing if they were surrounded and enclosed.  
Then he explained to them their duty as bushi. They were to fight and die for the Emperor. There could be no greater honour with which to proclaim themselves to their ancestors.  
Finally, he left them to their final tasks as men, to make peace with their fortunes.  
For himself, the Lion stood behind the spearsmen. Battle was a concert of uncertainties but he was sure the meagre line would break somewhere along its length. Whatever had the strength to overcome his men he would meet with his own. With some satisfaction he noted the Crab had joined him to the rear. It was no dishonour to be of a mind with a Crab clansman. They knew the ways of Fu Leng better than any.  
The Dragon, though, had stationed himself on the left flank. Hisashi watched him speaking to the heimin in low tones, his two blades held low by his sides. Hisashi frowned as he realised that Mirumoto Chomei had said not a word during the planning of the battle. It nettled him that he had not noticed sooner, a good general should know the minds of all his samurai, however cryptic they might seek to be.  
A shout of warning went up as the Shadowlands army broke from the forest  
Still, thought the Lion, the Dragon’s shinsei wisdom was of no use to him. Wisdom was for men.  
He was a samurai.   
.   
Shiba Shinobu watched the lake’s shore melt into the morning’s mist, the oarsmen’s efforts pulling them away smoothly. Satisfied, she turned to her charge standing across the raft from her, the scroll chest between them. As with all shugenja his mind was not on battle but settled upon matters far away. This world was her duty, the next was his concern. Shiba and Isawa had apportioned these shares of the universe thus since earliest times.  
The shugenja looked toward the far shore now bronzed by the dawn.  
He turned to his bodyguard with a typical Isawa question, “Do you think Mother Sun shines on the land of the dead also?”  
Shinobu made no reply waiting, as a good Yojimbo should, for her master to finish his thought.  
She was to be disappointed, though, the young shugenja’s attention was snared by something else.  
“I did not know Oni could swim quite so well,” he marvelled, every ken-an an Isawa.  
Shinobu watched the huge creature cut a swathe through the water towards them. The legacy of her clan was no less keenly felt.   
“To arms,” she commanded, as the first fire-arrow struck the raft.

The Scorpion ignored the unfolding battle. Unconcerned she tore strips of bark from a Kuni-fruit tree and handed them to her unwelcome Crane companion.   
“Rub them onto your hair, Crane,” she sighed, seeing his bemused look. “White hair may impress the court but is too conspicuous for my purposes.”   
Koto did as he was commanded hoping the resin did not permanently discolour his fine mane. “And what are your intentions, friend Scorpion?”  
Okita’s searing look told him what she thought of her new friend, “ To strike at the maho-tsukai from a blinded side.”  
As one would expect from a Scorpion came Koto’s unbidden thought.  
Okita recognised the stiffening of the body that proclaimed a samurai’s affronted honour. She stepped closer to him, savouring his discomfort as she did so. Deftly smoothing the resin into his hair to erase the last traces of white she was like a mother making her child fit for their daimyo. She adopted the same tone in explanation.  
“You Cranes are the finest duelists in Rokogan, are you not?”  
The compliment caught Koto off guard.  
“Of course,” was all he could manage.  
“You practise until your soul and your weapon are indivisible. Meditate upon your art until failure is no longer a possibility.”   
“Yes,” returned the Crane hearing the wisdom of his iajitsu master repeated to him from long years ago.  
“You become certain of your success because you know where your blade will fall even before you draw it, there is no other conceivable outcome”  
Koto was about to reply when the Scorpion cut across him, venom tainting each word.  
“The world does not allow a Scorpion time to practise, the Emperor‘s dictate did not leave us the luxury of meditation.” She suddenly had a wakasashi in her hand, Koto had not seen the draw.  
“I do not know where my blade will fall, friend crane,” she spat, scything the knife a blades-width from his throat, “but I do know where my enemy will be.”  
Okita’s straightened arm brought the wakasashi around behind her in a wide arc, straight into the chest of a goblin fastlegs scout. An upraised club fell from its fingers as it slumped lifelessly to the ground.   
Koto had not an inkling of the creature’s approach, Okita had had her back to the beast the entire time and still killed him with a single blow.  
“That is what means to be a Scorpion,” she said completing her ministrations to his hair, “and now you are ready to follow me.”  
Without another word she turned and sprinted towards the battle.

The Crab saw the Shadowlands force approach and stood unafraid, his stance steady. With practised eye he counted the goblins and ranked the Oni in order of ferocity. To destroy the enemy one must first know them. That was a lesson learnt from generations of Crab dead.  
The creatures met the ashigari line with unbelievable force. The sound of cracking bone and men’s screams drowned out even the battle cries of the Shadowlands enemy. The line bowed but not because of the Lion’s plan.  
Within the first moments of the battle they were overwhelmed.  
To the flank a group of goblins spilled past the line and forged up the hill towards the archers. Before they had covered two ken-an the Dragon leapt amongst them. He whirled in their midst wielding his two swords in a deadly kabuki. He slashed one goblin across the face, spun and dug his wakasahi into the thigh of another. A swift turn and push brought a third to the ground.  
Toju could see his strategy. If a goblin turned to climb the hill the Dragon reminded them there was the closer enemy with a nick or a thrust. Whilst none of their number fell the goblin’s courage held and they concentrated on the Dragon leaving the archers untroubled. Thus a lone samurai stopped the charge of a dozen.  
The Dragon pivoted on his left heel, his sweeping leg clubbing two goblins to the ground and clearing a precious arc of room for him. Springing back from the crouch his lunging movement had lent him, the Dragon dug his outstretched foot into the back of a goblin’s knee. The surprised creature went down in mid step with a shriek of dismay unharmed but, crucially, no closer to the archers.  
All the while he danced at the edge of death. In such close quarters the goblins tripped and struck each other as often as they placed a blow on target but the circle could only close so far before they overwhelmed the Dragon. Chomei was playing an unwinnable game, the margin of his success lessening with each moment. At first the goblin blows came within only a blades-width of the Dragon. In moments even this poor advantage was lost. The Dragon was forced to trade injuries where it lent him an advantage. He accepted a shallow cut on the arm to repay his assailant with a broken wrist, took a blow to the shoulder where it lent him extra momentum to his next sword thrust.  
Already the smallest imperfection in stance or technique would doom the Dragon. So far there were none.  
The Crab samurai was not content to allow the battle’s outcome to hang on the Dragon’s skill. The goblins’ deaths were needed not some ridiculous game of bluff. He started up the slope to see to it.  
In mid stride the Crab shifted his stance, burying his tetsubo in the neck of a goblin which had strayed too close to him. The spiked weapon bit too deeply into the creature and was ripped from Toju’s grasp as it fell to the ground. An oni, seeing the weaponless bushi, ran towards Toju tittering in mad glee.  
With a smooth movement Toju stopped the onrushing beast with a savage elbow strike between its eyes. It blinked, stunned for a moment. When it returned to its senses Toju was rearmed once more. It just had time to shriek before the Crab crushed its skull.  
Now it was the Crab who was surrounded by a quartet of goblins attracted by his skirmishing. His blows were broad and destructive but a single goblin evaded his defence. Dodging underneath the Crab’s attacks the goblin sliced across the samurai’s knee, severing the joint.  
Toju knew that his leg was ruined. He pushed with all the strength of his remaining limb and powered a sweeping blow through all of his remaining opponents hoping to fell them all whilst he still could stand.   
It was enough. With a cracking of bones he killed the last of his opponents. He and they hit the ground in the same tangle of limbs.  
The Crab cried out, not in pain but in frustration. A bushi did not die on his belly. He tucked his tetsubo under his arm and used it as a makeshift crutch to push himself upright. Little by little he moved his way towards the beleaguered Dragon, eyes fixed on his goal.  
He stopped only when an immense figure blocked his view. It was an oni twice as large as the muscular Crab. Toju had marked him from the first as the master of the troops. The oni smiled to see the helpless Crab before him and readied his own tetsubo, fully as long as Toju was tall.  
“No!” the single word rose above the battle furore easily.  
Surprised the oni turned to see Akodo Hisashi resplendent in his lion-maned armour, perfectly calm amongst the chaos of battle.  
“It is not him you seek,” said the Lion, quietly now to hold the oni’s attention.  
“I am the leader of these samurai. It is me you should test yourself against.”  
Something passed between the Oni and Lion in that moment.   
The oni saw only the uneven challenge and gave a curt nod in acceptance.  
The Lion saw more. The blood of Akodo flowed through his veins and he would always see the truth of battle. In the oni’s eyes the Lion saw his own death.  
He saw his own death and ran to meet it.

The oni surged from the water pulling itself partially on the deck, its bulk pitching the raft at a perilous angle. The scroll-case, rattled on its moorings by the impact, slewed half a Ken-an closer to the waiting monster.   
“Safeguard the scroll-case,” yelled Shinobu, hefting one hotei towards the Phoenix treasure to reinforce her point. If the scroll case fell into the water now the oni would simply swim away with it and they would die for nothing.  
Obeying her order forced the hoteis to turn their backs on the Shadowlands creature leaving them utterly defenceless. Not one hesitated. As one they braced against the huge case, struggling to gain purchase upon the sodden deck. Men and scroll-case both still slid towards the beast but now more slowly.  
Shinobu felt a thrill of pride at the men’s bravery and vowed to honour them in kind. She vaulted across the raft, grabbing a discarded yari as she did so, and attacked the Shadowlands creature alone.  
The beast had clawed itself several ken-an up the side of the boat with its three arms leaving scars of splintered wood in its wake. It slithered across the deck on malformed legs, its skin slick and black as shade. As it saw Shinobu it opened a set of double mouths to hiss at the charging yojimbo.   
For a moment a wave of pure fear stilled the bushi turning her muscles to water. The camber of the vessel saved her from her own dishonour, though, the momentum of her own rush carrying her onwards. She slammed into the oni’s head and the impact brought her to her senses once more. Bellowing a scream in shame that she had so nearly weakened to Shadowlands fear Shinobu brought the yari back and slammed it into the beast’s neck.   
The long blade splintered on the oni’s skin.  
The beast was immune to weapons. Shinobu had read of such things in the libraries of Gisei Toshi but had never truly believed them until this moment. She jumped back, dancing out of reach from the oni’s scything attacks. As she did her back met the scroll case behind her. The distance between the oni and its goal was now barely more than a sword’s length and she had no more room to retreat.  
Triumph lit in the oni’s segmented eyes as it dragged itself towards her. A bump from behind and a grunt of defeat from the hoteis proclaimed the scroll case even closer to disaster.  
Shinobu drew her katana slicing across the beast’s head with the fluid movement. The cut did no damage but the oni registered pain where the end of the blade made its scant contact.  
Now it was Shinobu’s turn for triumph. Her katana had been forged as a weapon against the Shadowlands. Its tip had been laced with jade during the casting making it deadly to the oni. She turned the blade backwards so that the tip faced the oni and slid her grip so that her palm cupped the pommel. She arched her back so that it was firmly against the scroll case.  
As she expected the scroll case slid downwards once more. This time, though, it also lent force to her blow. With all of her strength and the weight of the scroll case behind the blow Shinobu thrust the katana into the oni’s head.  
The beast bellowed in pain from the mortal wound thrashing around on the deck as it did so. Its body bowed backwards at an unnatural angle as it tried to bump backwards off the raft. As it did so Shinobu followed it pushing the katana deeper. Flesh exploded to each side of the wound, no doubt from some well-placed spell of her shugenja’s.  
The oni reached the raft’s edge before life finally fled from it. It slumped to the deck with a mewling sound but, with the majority of its bulk now back in the water, continued to slide backwards.  
Shinobu stepped back to withdraw her katana but failed to find purchase. The deck, slick with water and the oni’s own secretions betrayed her and she lost her footing.  
Her grip still stubbornly on the hilt of her katana the yojimbo followed the oni beneath the waves.

Crane and Scorpion both raced through the heart of the battle each fighting as their clans had taught them.   
The Crane was a raging force of death, striking down all who approached him in a storm of steel. In contrast the Scorpion fought the numberless enemy with movement and swiftness. She weaved through the battle flawlessly, each footfall perfectly measured. With polished ease she avoided blows with subtle turns and deflected attacks away from her by the smallest of margins. When this proved impossible, when her judgement of the flow of battle could chart no safe route through the melee, she carved her own path swiftly and mercilessly.  
She fought with small blade in either hand striking with each in quick succession. Speed was her weapon and she used it ruthlessly. Often she would strike to inflict pain rather than injury. Whilst her enemy was stunned she would race past it and rush onwards to face the next. This one she would vault over, the next would be killed. Each disposed of in a manner that defied prediction and took her nearer to her true goal - the maho-tsukai at the rear of the battle.  
Koto stepped over another body, a tanto still protruding from a fresh wound. The Scorpion left the weapons in her prey rather than pause to withdraw them. The utter ruthlessness of the technique marked it as pure Scorpion but it might prove to be the death of this poor Crane.  
Okita’s art was a tactic of the lone bushi. It opened a chink through the battle just wide enough for her to slip through and lent the Crane no aid. Worse, she left behind injured enemies who now saw him as their path to revenge. The Scorpion was by now so far ahead that she could no longer be seen but the Crane still stood there proudly to draw her punishment.  
Resigned to his position Koto jammed his back in the fork of a nearby kuni-fruit tree. With his rear defended he would trade his life dearly amongst the Shadowlands force. With each of his remaining heartbeats Okita would be a pace nearer to the maho-tsukai. The Crane contented himself with that even if it were a bargain forged by Scorpion guile, not Crane choice.  
A mixed group of the enemy had gathered around him tightening their circle as they mustered their courage. A lone goblin rushed forward first. Koto ended its existence with a single stroke. Another took its place and the Crane sliced across a wound that Okita had already given him. Before he had finished that goblin another was thrust forward by an oni pushing his way through the attackers. Okita pushed the goblin away and killed it with a powerful downward stroke already cursing his mistake. As he had known it would, the oni surged towards him before he had time to restore his guard. The creature caught him in the throat with a powerful swing of his club sending his head slamming back into the tree behind him.  
The Crane, struggling for breath, sank to one knee. He was drowning in a wave of chaotic thoughts barely able to hold onto a to a single conviction. He knew there was something he had to do. Something very important about his katana. He fixed his failing attention upon the blade marvelling at the silvered perfection all along its length. The blade of his forefathers. Their mon sat upon the pommel whilst the tip of the weapon was stabbed in the earth.   
Above him the oni roared as it brought his club down towards the unknowing Crane’s head.  
Koto smiled in triumph. He had just remembered what he had to do.  
He had to raise the katana to fend off the oni.  
If he could just remember how.

Shinobu plunged through the icy waters of the lake struggling with her ancestor’s blade. She hooked her elbow underneath the hilt of the weapon, her feet planted against the oni’s leathery skin. Still she had could not pull the steel free. She shifted her grip again and strained at the task once more. Her only reward was another shallow gash in her arm tearing a grunt of pain from her.  
Precious breath burst from her mouth seeking the lake’s surface high above her. The Phoenix was weakening, her strength ebbing away into the numbing elements surrounding her.   
At least she would die with her family’s blade intact. She wound herself about the katana and welcomed her fate sending a last prayer to the fortunes. In a final act of defiance she closed her eyes before the murkiness of the depths could fully rob her sight from her.  
With acceptance came a lessening of physical sensation. The chilled press of the lake receded. The rush of the waters fled from her hearing. A weightlessness cupped her body. Oddly, her grip on the katana remained undiminished. Perhaps she would carry it with her into the lands of the dead. The justice of this prompted a smile from deep within Shinobu. Awe at the celestial order flooded through her.  
So this was death.  
The purity of the moment was sullied by a sensation. Heat striped her cheek in a brief caress. A sound too crashed through the Phoenix’s calm, like the flapping of wings.   
No, it was not wings. It was a sound Shinobu recognised from this world, not the next.  
A fire-arrow’s passage. Close too.  
Shinobu opened her eyes.  
And smiled.

The Scorpion sprang through the fork of the Kuni-fruit tree leading feet first. One of her heels buried itself into the neck of the Oni, the other thundered into the crook of its elbow. The blow meant for the Crane’s head was spoilt, the impact shattering tree flesh instead of the Crane’s skull.  
Okita landed on the balls of her feet next to The Crane.  
“Get up Daidoji Koto,” she commanded, “your death doesn’t suit me yet.”  
She turned her attention to the Oni again letting out a scream as she stabbed him twice with cruel upward thrusts twisting the blades as she did so. The battle cry was pure kabuki theatre, the way of Scorpions was a silent discipline not untamed ferocity but it was enough to intimidate the gathered goblins. Their fearful hesitation was her goal.   
Letting the dying oni slip to the ground the Scorpion rounded on Koto.  
“Your fugue will kill us both, Crane,” she cursed and then seemed to reach a decision, “this will hurt.”  
Okita drew back her arm and tensed her whole frame for a moment. Then in an explosive movement she dug three of her fingers, held a pommel’s-width apart, into the fleshy part of Koto’s collar where shoulder met neck.  
If Okita had used a blade it would have been a killing blow. As it was the result was hardly less dramatic. Koto’s senses brush-fired across his body as his limbs convulsed uncontrollably. His sight blinded him, he could suddenly feel the air around him as it churned and crashed into his skin, every sound of the battle seared through his head. This release of sensation swept Koto’s stupor before it. He felt as if he had fought for a week but was ready to fight for another.  
Koto sprang to his feet beside the Scorpion now hard pressed to stem the flow of opponents  
“It will hurt a lot more later, I promise you,” she said by way of greeting.  
Apart Crane and Scorpion were deadly, together they became a murder machine. Okita would strike low where Koto attacked for the head, she struck to weaken their enemy’s defences whilst he administered the killing blows. They fought according to their school’s training and never once did their aim conflict.  
They were magnificent and terrible.  
Those who stood against them found only death and in scant moments only the silence of the slain surrounded the pair. Okita scowled at the felled opponents ranged around them and then made a gesture upwards.  
“Up into the tree, Koto,” she commanded, “you are too slow on the ground, perhaps above their heads you will go unnoticed.”  
She cupped her hands and boosted the Crane up into the tree’s limbs. Here the canopy was thick and a skilled climber could make their way from branch to branch. Koto began climbing looking ahead for boughs that could take his weight. Okita, with boneless grace, surged past him and blazed a path for them both. She slipped from one tree to another offsetting her weight on stronger branches to the weaker ones.  
Koto followed feeling as clumsy as a Crab in her wake. He was amazed both at her skill and the insight of using a child’s game as an act of war. It would not have occurred to him had he meditated for a thousand years. As they passed above the battle unheeded, the irony pleased him more with each moment.   
Of course, it was this irony that was making him smile not the fact that she had used his real name rather than his clan’s after the skirmish. She was a Scorpion after all.  
The smile stayed with him as Okita drew further ahead of him and the maho-tsukai drew into sight. It remained with him exactly until a poorly chosen tree limb betrayed the Crane and sent him plunging to the forest floor precisely at the feet of the bloodspeaker.   
He had not even seen the cut Okita had put in the branch.  
She was a Scorpion after all.

Akodo Hisashi ran towards the oni in silence. Striping across the creature’s body with first one shallow strike and then another he rushed past the creature to its rear quarter. The beast turned quickly wielding his tetsubo one-handed in a vicious sweep.   
Anticipating the attack the Lion avoided it easily and darted in beneath the oni’s primitive defence. Once again he struck quickly and with a shallow cut. He wanted the beast angry, not dead.   
Not yet. Not whilst his enemy could still serve a purpose.  
The oni advanced upon Hisashi eyes aflame with rage. The Lion stood his ground defiantly, stoking the creature’s anger further and seizing the oni’s attention fully with his sheer arrogance. In response the oni suddenly rushed forward swinging his weapon ahead of him in reckless circles. It was a clumsy attempt but Hisashi allowed the tetsubo to get within a blades-width of his head before, flashing a contemptuous smile, he stepped within the Tetsubo’s arc. The blow swept over him and into the forces beyond. Intent only upon the Lion, the oni had given no thought to what lay beyond him. With his untended target gone the oni’s powerful stroke landed amidst his own forces killing all within its crescent. Those goblins that had slipped through the breach with the oni and threatened Hisashi’s strategy were decimated by their leader’s own attack   
The Lion made sure to meet the creature’s gaze before giving his next order.   
“Close the breach,” he commanded jumping back from the oni as he did so.  
Hisashi’s men fell upon the Shadowlands forces still reeling from the oni’s attack. The gap in their defences was repaired and all was as the Lion intended.  
Now it was time to fight the oni in earnest.  
The creature hefted his weapon, bring it across his body in destructive strokes. With each attempt the Lion evaded the attack and rewarded his opponent with a wound to his lower body.  
The oni, cunning as well as vicious, changed strategy. Instead of long strokes he jabbed with the tetsubo, the long barb at its peak seeking the Lion’s flesh.   
Still the samurai’s skill outmatched the oni but now the Lion added insult to his collection of weapons. With each thrust he deflected the strikes just enough to keep him from harm and returned with a trifling blow of his own. He moved with long languid movements and exaggerated stances more suited to the practise field than a battle. With his formality he mocked the Shadowlands creature treating its attacks as if they were mere exercises.  
Enraged, the oni traded his strength for his skill lifting the full man-sized length of his tetsubo high above his head.  
At last the Lion had him.  
The oni brought down his weapon with his power and venom both. The Lion side-stepped the blow feeling the impact jump from the ground into his legs. With a stamp he forced the weapon deeper into the soil and then vaulted onto the tetsubo’s shaft itself, running up its length. Another step took him onto the oni’s huge arms and a third brought him to a level with the oni’s head.  
Hisashi’s blade bit deep into the oni’s neck. Drawing the katana close the Lion slipped down within the U formed by the enormous creature’s outstretched arms cutting from chest to stomach as he did so. Finally, with a powerful sideways motion Hisashi sliced across the creature’s belly.  
The wounds had fallen so quickly once the Lion had played his hand that the oni had only lifted his tetsubo mere inches from the ground.  
Only the final stroke remained.  
Standing close enough to the creature to feel the animal heat pour from it the Lion looked down towards one of its massive feet.  
“Now, Crab,” he said simply.  
Hida Toju had been inching towards the battle since the Lion’s challenge. The strength finally fleeing his legs completely he had dragged himself through the mud determined to aid in the defeat of the Shadowlands beast. Now, positioned as he was behind the oni’s leg, he grabbed hold of the enormous limb and threw his shoulder against the creature’s knee. Suffering from a dozen wounds and taken completely by surprise the oni began to topple forward.  
As he fell the Lion made no attempt to move to safety. Instead he moved underneath the creature’s tetsubo raising the weapon between them.  
The Lion had known from the first that he did not have the strength truly injure the oni. He was quite simply too powerful. Only the oni itself was capable of wreaking such enormous damage.   
The Oni tumbled forward like a felled tree. Matching his fall exactly the Lion fell backwards entirely focused upon keeping the huge tetsubo positioned between him and the great beast. With the weapon kept between the two combatants and the Oni’s weight to force the blow home their death was assured.  
Both of their deaths.  
Looking at the Oni as it plunged towards him from the other side of the spiked club Hisashi recalled something he had once been instructed by an Ikoma scholar. It came to him from years past but the freedom of his final moments lent it a perfect clarity in the Lion’s mind. The Ikoma had said that the servants of the Fu Leng all had but one mind. What one saw they all saw. What one of them knew they each knew in a chain linked all the way back to the Nameless One himself. As the Oni closed upon him, almost in an embrace, Hishashi Akodo reached a decision. Let his last act be one of defiance of Fu Leng. One that the lord of the darkness would witness through the eyes of his servant.  
He drew in a breath and let loose a battle cry loud enough for the Great Darkness himself to hear. Let him know that Hisashi Akodo was an enemy of the Shadowlands as great as any that had lived under mother sun.  
Only death was powerful enough to silence his message.

Shinobu floated some three ken-an above the surface of the lake. The magic, which had carried her from the depths, cradled her aloft still. Below her Yohiro stood on the burning raft matching her smile.  
“A new spell, Yohiro-san?” asked Shinobu correctly guessing the source of her shugenja’s pleasure.  
“Isn’t it wonderful? I did not think I would have a chance to use it before I met my ancestors.”  
The last drove all joy from Yohiro’s features. The next came in graver tones.  
“Now, my loyal yojimbo, you must decide quickly. Will you join me on the raft or continue the battle on the far shore?”  
Shinobu watched her shugenja present the stark choice as calmly as any proposal in the Pheonix debating chambers. Awash with the emotions of half a life’s companionship she suddenly found herself unable to meet his steady gaze. Whichever choice she made her charge would die. Her failure was complete either way.  
“Oh,” brightened Yohiro, “or I could set you down on the Shadowlands craft.”  
The yojimbo jerked suddenly straight, her exasperation at the Isawa butterfly-mind bringing alertness with it. With the practice of long years she pinioned her shugenja’s wavering attention with her most dangerous tone.  
“What Shadowlands craft?” she scalded.

Koto crashed to the ground in front of the maho-tsukai. Immediately, before even taking in his situation, the Crane felt the man’s evil. It was a tangible thing emanating from the servant of Fu Leng, so profound was the depth of the man’s corruption. It was as if the evil within the man had to proclaim itself in this way for little else spoke of the maho-tsukai’s state.  
He stood no taller than average, he was certainly dressed no differently from a hundred other shugenja Koto had met. His only distinguishing feature was a lack of distinction. His skin was unnaturally smooth displaying none of the imperfections that a person attracts with the woes of life. Not a scar marked him nor a wrinkle marred his appearance. He looked as if he had been born that very morning.  
Flanking him in contrast stood two oni. Their strength derived from their master and, as the antithesis of the natural order, they were impossibly powerful. Their movements too were unfittingly swift for their bulk. Their every step was a contradiction of what should be, a demonstration that the rules of the celestial order were moot to Fu Leng’s servants.  
Koto scrambled back barely garnering a semblance of stance before the first oni was upon him. It advanced with a bewildering flurry of thrusts and swipes. Koto ignored them all gathering his focus about him. The knowledge that he could not defeat these two liberated him. All emotion slipped away and the world receded. With motive and action discarded Koto was only left with the simplest of truths.  
His katana and where it would strike.  
Even the Scorpion had recognised the truth and power of perfection. It was inevitable that his sword would land where he wished it. The universe would allow nothing else.  
The moment of decision and striking were one, perfectly indivisible, and the oni was slain. Its companion advanced more cautiously and Koto made the decision to trade his life for the oni’s. Once again the order of things began to mesh as he saw fit when a shout tore him back to the mundane.  
“Your nage-yari, Koto,” came the order.  
Okita had slipped behind the maho-tsukai. She was pressed close against the creature’s back, moulding the curves of her body against his. Held against his throat, hard enough to draw blood already, was the Scorpion’s tanto.   
“A cut alone will not kill,” she gasped, “You must pierce him at the same time.”  
Koto ran towards the remaining oni, striking him quickly before it had time to defend himself. He followed it with another attack high on the oni’s body. The oni made to defend itself with an answering strike but met with no resistance from Koto’s blade. The samurai had released his grip on the katana. With nothing to stop the oni’s riposte it swung wide, carrying the creature forward with its momentum. With a full head’s height difference between them Koto easily ducked beneath the sweeping blow and was past the oni.  
The Crane stood before the maho-tsukai his hands already tight on the hilt of his nage-yari. The Scorpion still clung to the maho-tsukai’s back tenaciously despite the searing Shadowlands magics he rained down upon her. As the Crane struck he saw the Scorpion open her mouth as if in warning but it was too late, the deed was done.  
With nage-yari and blade both the maho-tsukai was slain.

Shinobu watched their floundering raft from afar. The scroll case and bodies of the samurai were no longer visible beyond the fire that now raged across the vessel. Flames over three ken-an high rose from its deck and a column of thick smoke canted and flexed across the lake’s surface like silken ribbon.   
The Shadowlands raft was of a similar pedigree to their own, little more than bamboo stalks hastily lashed together and driven by makeshift oars. Regardless, it made good progress and quickly drew alongside its prize before faltering.   
Even from this great distance Shinobu could still clearly see the Shadowlands creatures fall to bickering, none wanting to be the first to brave either the fire or the vessel’s uncertain footing. The matter was swiftly settled when an ogre bodily threw one of his goblin minions into the flames in anger. The bellow that closely followed was on obvious threat to repeat the practice if the burning raft was not boarded swiftly. A concerted jockeying for position ensued before one of the goblins took to paddling water over the flames. Faced with this alternative to mounting the burning deck the goblins quickly bent to the pointless task.  
So far only the Shadowlands creatures stupidity had safeguarded the subterfuge. They had not thought it odd that their companion had slipped into the flames without a cry. Nor had they noticed how the flames burned heedless of their efforts to douse them. This could not last forever. The time to act was upon them.  
“Now, Yohiro san,” Shinobu whispered simply.  
Upon the command the shugenja ceased his prayers to the fortunes and allowed his magics to flicker and die. On the raft the illusory flames, born solely of the shugenja’s magic, died suddenly revealing the remaining unscathed ashigari. With a rush they fell upon the Shadowlands raft casting the goblins ahead of them with the force of surprise.  
From above came Shinobu. The shugenja had held her high above the two craft where she could survey the battle without being seen herself. As Yoshi allowed the spell to fade she plunged downwards towards the Shadowlands raft with her yari held beneath her. Strength of muscle and momentum combined as she thrust the weapon deep into the broad back of the ogre. It took just the one tremendous blow to fell the Shadowlands commander but Shinobu was immediately ready, katana drawn, to face any other opponents. Poised above the ogre’s corpse she could see there were none. With his death the Shadowlands crew had panicked. Those left unslain by the first rush had leapt into the lake to escape.  
As the Shadowlands creature swam to safety Shinobu sought her shugenja – a yojimbo to the core. He was standing by the scroll-case eyeing the widening gap between the two rafts. His own vessel was disintegrating rapidly but he knew they had all found their means of escape in the crude Shadowlands raft.  
Again Shinobu felt a flash of sympathy for the shugenja’s childish impracticality. She gave the order for the vessels to be hauled together before her charge sent himself plunging to the lake bottom with an ill timed leap.  
“Do we leave the scroll-case here?” asked Yoshi as he boarded his the new raft.  
“No, bring it across,” replied the yojimbo. She pointed upwards with a smile, “From my perch I saw the Shadowlands champion fall and the flow of battle turning in our favour. There will be no need for divers this day.”  
She turned to the remaining ashigari to give her command.  
“Head for the shore men, we are victorious.”

With the maho-tsukai’s death came the release of his power. His control, once the Shadowlands army’s greatest asset, became their enemy. At the point of death the maho-tsukai gained an absolute clarity and understanding. The universe laid itself bare before his dying mind. He learnt the depths of Fu Leng’s lies and saw what awaited his servants beyond the gates of death. As the maho-tsukai understood so did his troops. The knowledge passed through the Shadowlands army as swiftly as the maho-tsukai’s commands had. In its wake it left madness, despair and panic.  
In an instant the army was broken, its will torn from it.  
The rest, the slaughter of the goblins and execution of Fu Leng’s creatures, was a mere formality. Not one escaped the Emperor’s justice that day.

Koto knelt beside the bodies of the maho-tsukai and Scorpion both. His attack had been a killing blow, its strength sending it through the sorcerer deep into the slight frame of the Scorpion. He had examined the woman’s wound and watched the life drain from her eyes. All he could do now was ensure her soul was cared for as she deserved. He turned back towards the lake seeking a shugenja with knowledge of the correct prayers.  
He took a pace and then another before a thought stopped him.  
She is a Scorpion.  
The suspicion disgraced him and the Scorpion and he thrust it away.  
She was to be tried for the murder of your yoriki.  
Koto’s pace faltered.  
She is a Scorpion. You should not turn your back upon her.  
Koto stopped, paused for a moment and swung round a denial bursting from his lips.  
“NO,” he shouted to the empty forest and the maho-tsukai’s body now lying alone.  
“This is not ended, be sure of that Scorpion. I abandoned my family blade for you. You cut the branch to draw the oni away,” the last realisation came unbidden now as the betrayal and dishonour rushed upon him, “I will find you.”

From close by in the forest just below the grasp of hearing came a reply muted with regret.  
“Yes, my love, you are right. This is not over.”


End file.
